Two doors down
A flood on the far side of the world caves in your whole afternoon.
You read the headline and feel it land somewhere behind your ribs.
There is nothing you can do from eight thousand kilometres away and still it takes you.
Meanwhile the woman two doors down carries her bins out alone again.
You have never once offered.
Strange how grief travels.
It reaches you loudest from the places you can do nothing about.
The tragedy close enough to touch goes unnoticed on your own street.
Your concern is real.
It just went somewhere it could never arrive.
Care isn't how bad you feel about the far away.
It's what you do for the near.
A disaster on the far side of the world caves in your afternoon while the need next door goes unseen. Care isn't what you feel. It's who you were close enough to help.
